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Adobe PageMaker Plus 6.5 Adobe PageMaker Plus 6.5 Upgrade Adobe InDesign 1.5 Adobe InDesign 1.5 Upgrade Quark XPress 4.1 |
I'm a graphic designer who specializes in creating and reinventing business identities. Following 20+ years in the nonprofit sector, I began working for myself, and I can truly say I love what I do for a living. It happens that I've been a Corel software fan since the prehistoric days before the release of Corel Draw 1.0, that wonderful new kid on the graphic block. I even have the dubious honor of being one of the very few living persons ever to have heard of let alone actually used Corel Headline, Corel NewFont and Corel Tabin, Corel's early utilities designed to enhance Xerox’s initial offering of Ventura Publisher. (If you've never heard of those early programs, don't be embarrassed, because you're not alone; most of the Corel employees I've spoken with in recent years had never heard of them either!)
Bear with me now as I tell you my sad story. (Don't worry, it has a happy ending!) It's what you might call the simple story of boy meets desktop publishing program; boy falls in love with desktop publishing program; boy falls out of love with desktop publishing program; boy and desktop publishing program break up; and, in the final chapter, boy and desktop publishing program are together again, sadder but wiser, with love once again triumphant over adversity.
I had used Ventura Publisher, all the way from Xerox's Version 1.0, which ran under GEM from Digital Research (the PC's first graphical user interface), through Corel's much improved Version 5 under Windows. I could lie and say Ventura and I have always had a happy marriage; the truth, however, is that following Version 5, Ventura seemed like a stranger to me, no longer the user-friendly, intuitive program I had come to love and had grown with together over the years since first we met. With time, that love had begun to change to peaceful coexistence, then to frustration and yes, I admit it, even resentment and anger. Eventually, Ventura and I got a no-fault divorce. I could see no other way out, and it's not as if there were any children to consider.
Unshackled at last, free to work with any other desktop publishing program I wished, I rushed out, bought Quark XPress and dove in. As I opened the new program for the first time, eager to begin work, I was somewhat confused; no matter where I looked I couldn't find those useful little icons to open, close, cut, paste, etc., with just a click. My face became very serious as I tried to think the way Quark might think: OK, the default must be to have the icons turned off and I just have to turn them back on. But there was no simple little utility bar to do that with in Quark! Ten minutes into the new program and I already had begun to miss some of Ventura's features; but our affair was over and I'd never even consider going back; my pride would never let me do that, let alone even question my decision. I did find a little shareware utility which let me create my own toolbar and icons and which would load whenever I loaded Quark XPress. Now that I had my toolbar, I could return to the waiting jobs and get some real creative work done. Within another ten minutes, I found myself searching helplessly through the Quark manuals and four different third-party texts, trying to find the simple instructions for adding a caption to a picture, or for setting up automated headers or footers, but I couldn't find the words "caption", "header" or "footer" in any of the textbooks. "OK," I reasoned, "Quark must just use different vocabulary for the same things; once I learn what they're called in Quark XPress, I can look up the instructions and begin setting up my document with the same familiar ease to which I'd become accustomed in Ventura." A little embarrassed at my apparent ignorance, I asked a designer friend what Quark's terms were for "caption", "header" and "footer", so I could look them up. My friend laughed and began to explain with, I think, a hint of patronizing in her voice that Quark designers don't need automated ways of creating these objects; they just use ordinary text frames. What enemy territory had I gotten myself into, who were these people, and what strange language must they speak? And, what on earth were they thinking when they designed this program?!!! I I felt impotent, in a sort of DTP kind of way. I hated to admit it, but it was beginning to look as if Ventura had spoiled me rotten. I missed her ease of use and familiar icons; but Quark XPress was, after all, the standard among desktop publishing and design professionals on both platforms. And Ventura, after all, had betrayed me by getting less intuitive, and I had my pride. But what else could I do?
Then it came to me like a bolt of lightning: Of course! Pagemaker! So many people have told me how easy is to use; it's got to be replete with those features I had taken for granted in Ventura but were missing from Quark XPress. Excited, I ran out, bought and installed Pagemaker. Once more, I dove in, eager to start creating; but within two minutes I was in a state of total disbelief: No program in this day and age, particularly a graphics program, could be limited to a single “Undo”; there must be a setting to change that, with the default set to 1 to save memory. But no sooner than I had verified that there really weren’t multiple Undo's and knew, at least, it couldn't get worse...it got worse. Some actions in Pagemaker, I learned, were just plain not Undo-able, not even one single Undo!!! Pretty annoyed by this time, I tried to recall how long ago Adobe had acquired Pagemaker from Aldus; I couldn't understand why a powerful company like Adobe hadn't done anything to improve it in all that time! When my breathing began to return to some semblance of normal, I began looking for that little basic icon toolbar I knew must be a feature of Pagemaker!! "Oh, you say it doesn't come with it, but I can PURCHASE an add-on utility from a third party that will give me my simple little toolbar, and it will only cost me HOW much?!!! Thanks a lot!" My hands were tied, so I cut the Gordian knot and, with resentment in my heart, bought the third-party add-on package. This had to have been a conspiracy by Mac users to put PC users in our place.
With everything against him no matter which way he turned, what was a graphic designer to do but weep? And so I wept.
I boycotted Pagemaker altogether, unless a client absolutely needed it and used Quark XPress, but only when I had to. Before long, out of desperation, I began creating everything in CorelDRAW, which has always been my good friend. But Corel Draw, as much as I love it, wasn't really designed for publishing long documents!
Then, by chance, fortune smiled upon me and I came across Rick Altman’s piece "Killer Ventura" in the editorial archive section of his Web site, where I read this bold and passionate statement: "As far as I'm concerned, Ventura Publisher 8.0 is the finest publishing program ever produced on any platform, for any computer."
Wow! Rick’s editorial was instrumental in my decision to give my "ex" another chance. I'm now proud to say that I've come back home again, home to the Ventura Publisher I loved. We've both learned a lot and grown during these intervening years; but, I’m glad to tell you, she sure blows both Quark XPress and Pagemaker away!
@TOTALLYSINCERECLOSING = Love live Corel Ventura Publisher and, of course, God bless us everyone!
JOSEPH STAMLER
Principal
Visual Transformations & Graphic Solutions
Fairfield, CT, USA
Email: JS@VisualTransformations.com
Web Site: http://www.VisualTransformations.com
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